The Government launches a free multi-trip ticket for state bus lines

The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) has created a free multi-trip ticket to be used in each of the origins and destinations of all regular public transport service concessions for general use by road owned by the State Administration, which will be valid from February 1 to December 31 of 2023. Throughout this period, “recurring users for a route with a determined origin and destination of a concession of state competition will have the right to a 100% bonus of the ticket price”, according to the published resolutionto this Wednesday by the Ministry. In this way, scales from 50% to 100% the bonus that was already in force since September 1, including the one that unites Barcelona-Zaragoza-Madrid, as confirmed to EL PERIÓDICO by Mitma sources. During the month of January the 50% discount will be maintained for the 42 initial routes.

Why?

The measure stems from the decree against the energy crisis approved by the Council of Ministers on December 27. The Government justifies the measure based on the fact that the increase in fuel costs has a “very notable” impact on the ability of citizens to be able to assume the cost of transportation associated with forced daily mobilityfor essentially work reasons, but also family care, or essential services such as medical care.

The Ministry adds that the persistence of this situation could lead to an inability to provide an outlet for this forced daily mobility by private vehicle, a means that, on the other hand, is associated with a series of very high external costs, such as pollution. In the same way that the Government had already provided for the free service of suburban railways, now the 100% bonus is transferred to long-distance buses.

When?

The titles will have Valid from February 1, throughout the rest of the year 2023. But they will be marketed in three periods: between February 1, 2023 and April 30, 2023; between May 1, 2023 and August 31, 2023 and between September 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023.

How?

Multi-trip tickets will be sold for each of these periods, which will be personal and non-transferable. A multi-trip ticket will be necessary for each route with a specific origin-destination.

Thus, each trip that is made on a recurring basis will require a multi-trip ticket and the user must pay a deposit which will be reimbursed if the required recurrence is reached: 12 trips for the first quarter of application and 16 trips for the second and third quarters of 2023. If the use of each of these routes does not meet this frequency, it will not be possible to recover the bail at the end of each period.

Deposit and recovery of the deposit

The amount of the deposit will be established based on the price of the single ticket without bonus, ranging between 20 and 65 euros. Specifically, a deposit of 20 euros is set for journeys with a ticket price of up to 5 euros. The deposit will be 35 euros on journeys with a ticket price between 5.01 and 13 euros. For journeys with a ticket price between 13.01 and 25 euros, the deposit will be 50 euros. In addition, a deposit of 65 euros is established for journeys with a ticket price of more than 25 euros.

What type of routes does it affect?

The free measure is designed for state-owned public road passenger transport service management contracts. Since September 1, a 50% discount has been applied on 42 lines which include some routes with origin or destination in Catalonia, such as those from Lleida-Huesca; Barcelona-Huesca; Madrid-Badalona; Teruel-Barcelona, ​​Zaragoza-Castellón, for Tarragona; Viella-Lleida; Lleida-Molina de Aragon; Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona; Santander-Barcelona; Seville-Manresa or Santiago de Compostela-Barcelona. It is possible to think that on those same 42 lines the discount will be extended from 50% to 100%. At the moment, the Mitma has only confirmed the free line between Barcelona-Zaragoza-Madrid from February 1 for frequent travelers.

The procedure

The resolution published by the Mitma establishes that concessionary companies will be directly in charge of issuing multi-trip passes to those interested, through the usual channels of commercialization, and they will keep the corresponding registry of sale of these titles. The titles may be issued in advance from the effective date and throughout the entire validity period. The concessionary company may not charge management expenses in the issuance of multi-trip tickets or in the sale of tickets associated with multi-trip tickets.

In addition, each multi-trip pass must have an associated a unique personalized code, which will collect information related to the identification of its holder, identification of the concession and the origin-destination, in addition to the indication of the period of validity.

ticketing

Travelers who want to make use of a previously purchased free voucher must formalize a ticket for each trip they intend to make.

The generated tickets will be associated with the multi-trip ticket. Tickets issued charged to multi-trip tickets must include a QR code that collects the detailed information necessary for its control. The ticket will contain at least the QR code, the ID number and for minors without ID, the ID of the legal guardian and the date of birth.

Control and sanctions

The Ministry of Transport will make the concessionary companies responsible for compliance with the marketing conditions to avoid excessive or inappropriate use of multi-trip tickets. For this, for example, it will be impossible to formalize more than one trip per direction and day, unless it has previously been cancelled.

Related news

The use of a ticket by a person other than the holder of the multi-trip ticket, or failure to cancel a formalized trip and not made at least 24 hours in advance will also be considered inappropriate use.

In particular, the resolution published by the Government establishes that the multi-trip ticket will be withdrawn and the deposit will be seized from travelers with improper use on 3 detected occasions.

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